On 22 April 1945, two days after Adolf Hitler's birthday, he arrived in the Führerbunker in Berlin. He was one of the witnesses to the marriage of Hitler to Eva Braun.[source?] On the same day, he took over the leadership from Hitler.[5] After Hitler's suicide on 30 April, he became the Chancellor of Germany.[1] He only held this job for one day, because on 1 May 1945, his wife poisoned their six children with the help of an SS doctor.[3] Immediately afterward he and his wife went up to the garden of the Chancellery, where they killed themselves.[source?] The details of their suicides are uncertain. After the war, Rear-Admiral Michael Musmanno, a U.S. naval officer and judge, published several accounts apparently based on eye-witness testimony: According to one account. "While Schwägermann was preparing the petrol, he heard a shot. Goebbels had shot himself and his wife took poison. Schwägermann ordered one of the soldiers to shoot Goebbels again because he was unable to do it himself."[source?] One SS officer said they each took cyanide and ordered an SS trooper to shoot them both. According to another account, Goebbels shot his wife and then himself.

↑ 3.03.1Beevor, Antony (2003) [2002]. "Chapter 25: Reich Chancellery and Reichstag". Berlin: The Downfall 1945. Penguin History. London: Penguin Books. p. 380. ISBN0-140-28696-9. "Kunz said that he could not face giving poison to the sleeping children... Together with Stumpfegger, she [Magda Goebbels] opened the mouths of the sleeping children, put an ampule of poison between their teeth and forced their jaws together."